Public Hearing on ABQ Toxic Waste Site Extended

From Sue Dayton, Director, Citizen Action New Mexico

The public hearing for the Mixed Waste Landfill has been extended this week to Wednesday, Dec. 8th and Thursday, Dec. 9th. If you and/or your organization have not yet testified and would like to do so there is still time to do it!

The state has been very accommodating in allowing members of the public to read their comments at any time during the day. However, we are urging those members of the public who would still like to submit comments to attend the hearing on Wednesday Dec. 8th at 7 p.m. to testify as to what they think should be done with the dump. There is no time limit as to the length of your comments. The dump and its estimated 100,000 cubic ft. of radioactive and hazardous waste is sitting in unlined pits and trenches over Albuquerque's sole source aquifer on Albuquerque's East Mesa adjacent to one of Albuquerque's fastest growing areas.

The public hearing begins at 9 a.m. each day and ends at 10 p.m., and is being held at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center, 2500 Carlisle Blvd. NE, Albuquerque, just off I-40 and Carlisle Blvd. exit. There is plenty of parking. Once you're inside the hotel just follow the signs to the 'Cavalier Room.'

Citizen Action - and many other organizations and members of the public- supports a plan that calls for complete excavation and clean up of the dump to GUARANTEE that Albuquerque's groundwater is protected over the long-term. However, the plan proposed by Sandia/DOE that has received initial approval by the state calls for covering the dump with dirt and abandoning the waste in place without a financial assurance mechanism to ensure continued monitoring. Sandia's plan proposes monitoring of the dump for approximately 100 years - even though much of the radioactive and hazardous waste will remain hazardous essentially forever.

To date some of the organizations that have testified at the hearing in support of clean up of the dump include the Sierra Club, the New Mexico Public Health Association, the Albuquerque/Bernalillo Groundwater Protection Advisory Board, the Rio Grande Community Development Corporation, members of the Mountain View Neighborhood Association, Citizens Against Radioactive Dumping, Gray Panthers of Albuquerque, Unitarian Universalist Church. Please feel free to send this announcement to your listserves.

For more information call Sue Dayton, Director, Citizen Action New Mexico: (505) 280-1844.